- Kenneth C. Crowe, "Philip Foner, Leading Labor Historian, Dies." Newsday, December 15, 1994, pg. A64.
Philip Sheldon Foner (December 14, 1910 – December 13, 1994) was an American labor historian and teacher. Foner was a prolific author and editor of more than 100 books. He is considered a pioneer in his extensive works on the role of radicals, Black Americans, and women in American labor and political history, which were generally neglected in mainstream academia at the time. A Marxist thinker, he influenced more than a generation of scholars, inspiring some of the work published by younger academics from the 1970s on. In 1941, Foner became a public figure as one among 26 persons fired from teaching and staff positions at City College of New York for political views, following an investigation of communist influence in education by a state legislative committee, known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee.
Foner is best remembered for his 10-volume History of the Labor Movement in the United States, published between 1947 and 1994. He also edited the 5-volume collection The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, and wrote a biography of the abolitionist leader. His works Organized Labor and the Black Worker, (1974 and 1982 editions) and the two-volume Women in the American Labor Movement (1979 and 1980) also broke new ground in history. For his American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century (1975), Foner received the Deems Taylor Award, presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
His scholarship, publications and political affiliations were considered to be on the far left.[1] In 1979, the New York State Board of Higher Education formally apologized to Foner and other persons who lost their jobs as a result of the Rapp-Coudert Committee, saying it had seriously violated academic freedom.[2] The New York Labor History Association had awarded Foner a lifetime achievement award in 1994. It reiterated its support in 2003 that the value of his work exceeded his shortcomings.[3]
Foner was born in 1910 into an Eastern European immigrant family on the Lower East Side of New York City.[4] His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian empire. Foner grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and graduated from Eastern District High School.[4]
Philip Foner had three brothers, who also became important figures in the American Left, coming to adulthood during the Great Depression. His twin brother Jack D. Foner (1910–1999) became a professional historian, and was the father of historian Eric Foner. Two other brothers were leading unionists: Moe Foner was active in 1199 of the United Healthcare Workers and was particularly notable for running the union's cultural programs. Henry Foner led the Furriers' Union.
Foner obtained his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York (CCNY) in 1932, where he and his brother Jack were both students of historian Allan Nevins.[4] He earned his master's degree from Columbia University in 1933. He was then accepted into Columbia's Doctoral program in 1934 with a scholarship. In 1941, he received his Ph.D.[4]
Foner became an instructor of history at City College of New York in 1933, the same year in which he obtained his master's degree.[4] He taught there through 1941, when his first book was published, Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict.[1]
Foner was one of 26 faculty and staff members of City College who were fired from their jobs by the end of 1942 as a result of an investigation of communist influences in higher education by the New York State Legislature's Rapp-Coudert Committee. Established in spring 1940, it was officially known as the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York.[5] Foner and 40 other faculty members at CCNY were subsequently brought under investigation for supposed associations and membership with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) on March 7, 1941.[6] Foner testified at the investigative hearings a month later in April, during which he denied being a member of the CPUSA.[5]
The next month he was brought up on charges by the Board of Higher Education's Conduct Committee. In August the Board held a trial in his case on charges that he belonged to the Communist Party, had participated in such related activities as the publication of The Teacher-Worker, a newsletter of a Communist Party unit active at City College; and had given false testimony at his hearing. The trial committee made a report recommending his dismissal in November 1941.[7]
Foner's three brothers: his twin Jack, a professor of history at CCNY; Moe, a worker in the CCNY registrar's office; and Henry, a substitute teacher in the New York City public schools, were also caught up in the investigation. They were fired from their jobs as well.[4]
After his dismissal from City College, Foner became a principal and chief editor for Citadel Press, based in New York City.[4] This was his primary means of survival during the years of being blacklisted.
In 1947, the first volume of what would become Foner's magnum opus, A History of the Labor Movement of the United States, was released by International Publishers, a publisher considered close to the Communist Party USA[citation needed]. Writing as a Marxist, Foner emphasized the role of the working class and their allies in a class struggle dating to the earliest days of the American republic.
One historian described his work as presenting "a formidable challenge to the orthodox John R. Commons interpretation of labor history."[1] This school of thought at the University of Wisconsin considered unionized workers to be improving their position in American capitalism.[3] By contrast, according to historian Nelson Lichtenstein, Foner believed that "unions were part of a broader movement for democratization -- a means of struggling for political and social goals such as equality and power, as well as better wages, hours, and working conditions."[3] He published nine more volumes in this history during his life, with the last, ending at the eve of the Great Depression, published shortly before his death.
In 1949, Foner published the first volume of his multi-volume work, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, also produced by International Publishers in New York City. The work totaled five volumes, being published between 1949 and 1952. His nephew Eric Foner, known for his own work on the Reconstruction era, said that Douglass had been largely forgotten as an important abolitionist and African-American leader when his uncle started publishing his writings.[3]
In 1967, the power of the blacklist finally waned. Philip Foner was hired as a history professor at Lincoln University, a historically black university located near Oxford, Pennsylvania. Foner served here until his retirement in 1979.[4]
Following his retirement, Foner continued to publish books. He usually worked as a co-author and editor of document collections in association with a younger scholar. An historian of a later generation described his style as amassing primary documents, in the manner of some 19th-century historians.[3]
In 1979, nearly three decades after the mass firings at City College, the New York State Board of Higher Education formally apologized to Foner and persons attacked by the Rapp-Coudert Committee, whose lives had been disrupted by firings, political fears and rumors. The Board described the conduct of the Rapp-Coudert Committee as "an egregious violation of academic freedom."[2]
Foner became a professor of history at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, in 1981.
Following his wife Roslyn's death, Foner married again in 1988. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1991.
Foner's work was politically controversial in a period of American fears about immigrant anarchists, labor unrest, and the power of the Soviet Union and Communist Party. Some historians have also criticized his work on scholarly grounds. In 1971, writing in Labor History journal, historian James O. Morris documented that Foner had plagiarized material from Morris' 1950s unpublished master's thesis in his 1965 book, The Case of Joe Hill.[8] Morris wrote that "About one quarter of the Foner text is a verbatim or nearly verbatim reproduction" of his manuscript, and had other complaints.[8]
Scholars such as labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein acknowledge that Foner's shortcomings were recognized in the 1970s and 1980s, but supporters believe that he still made substantial contributions to the field.[3]
In May 2003, complaints about Foner were discussed among labor historians on H-Labor and in postings at the History News Network, with accusations of plagiarism and sloppy scholarship. Scott McLemee reviewed the controversy in an article in Chronicle of Higher Education and noted that old political debates were being re-opened.[3] Many academics, intellectuals and artists had suffered suppression during the McCarthy era.
Foner's nephew Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University said that "his uncle's radical politics are the crux of the recent debate. 'Obviously, any charge of plagiarism needs to be taken seriously,' he says. 'But I think that this controversy is being muddied up with powerful ideological issues that ought to be kept quite separate'."[3]
In May 2003, labor historian Mel Dubofsky accused Philip Foner of having "borrowed wholesale from my then unpublished dissertation" on the Industrial Workers of the World for use in Volume 4 of his History of the Labor Movement in the United States.[9] Dubofsky said that Foner extracted large chunks of this dissertation "without attribution or inverted commas."[9] Dubofsky alleged that Foner had similarly used unpublished work of other young scholars "too numerous to mention."[9] But Dubofsky also noted that many young labor historians in the 1970s felt that Foner had suffered enough in being blacklisted and were reluctant to take any official action against him. He said, "So even the people whose work he had borrowed from freely did not want to say anything."[3]
Historian John Earl Haynes, who has used Soviet archives for his multi-volume work on the American Communist Party, said there had long been criticisms of Foner for plagiarism, but said he was a "hero to radical historians."[3] In a posting on the History News Network, Haynes said that Foner had inaccurately footnoted references to some of Haynes' work.[10]
Eric Foner added another perspective to his uncle's work:
He edited the writings of Frederick Douglass at a time when, believe it or not, nobody remembered him. He edited seven volumes of documents on the history of black labor in the United States, and collections of material from black political conventions in the 19th century. And he did all of it without research assistants or grants. This debate is not doing justice to his contributions to scholarship.[3]
In recognition of the value of the historian's body of work, the president of the New York Labor History Association said it had no plans to revoke the lifetime-achievement award it gave to Foner in 1994.[3]
Foner married Roslyn Held in 1939. The pair had two daughters, Elizabeth and Laura.[4]
Philip S. Foner died on December 13, 1994, a day before his 84th birthday.[4]
For his American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century (1975), Foner received the Deems Taylor Award, presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).[4]
